§ 63
Peter did not want to set traps for this mother of Mount Olympus, he
didn't want to worm any secrets from her. And as it happened, he found
that he did not have to, because she told him everything right away, and
without the slightest hesitation. She talked just as the "wobblies" had
talked in their headquarters; and Peter, when he thought it over,
realized that there are two kinds of people who can afford to be frank
in their utterance — those who have nothing to lose, and those who have
so much to lose that they cannot possibly lose it.
Mrs. Godd said that what had been done to those men
last night was a crime, and it ought to be punished if ever
a crime was punished, and that she would like to engage
detectives and get evidence against the guilty ones. She
said furthermore that she sympathized with the Reds of
the very reddest shade, and if there were any color redder
than Red she would be of that color. She said all this in
her quiet, soft voice. Tears came into her eyes now and
then, but they were well-behaved tears, they disappeared of
their own accord, and without any injury to Mrs. Godd's
complexion, or any apparent effect upon her self-possession.
Mrs. Godd said that she didn't see how anybody could fail to be a
Red who thought about the injustices of present-day society. Only a few
days before she had been in to see the district attorney, and had tried
to make a Red out of him! Then she told Peter how there had come to see
her a man who had pretended to be a radical, but she had realized that
he didn't know anything about radicalism, and had told him she was sure
he was a government agent. The man had finally admitted it, and showed
her his gold star — and then Mrs. Godd had set to work to convert him!
She had argued with him for an hour or two, and then had invited him to
go to the opera with her. "And do you know," said Mrs. Godd, in an
injured tone, "he wouldn't go! They don't want to be converted, those
men; they don't want to listen to reason. I believe the man was actually
afraid I might influence him."
"I shouldn't wonder," put in Peter, sympathetically; for
he was a tiny bit afraid himself.
"I said to him, `Here I live in this palace, and back in the
industrial quarter of the city are several thousand men and women who
slave at machines for me all day, and now, since the war, all night too.
I get the profits of these peoples' toil — and what have I done to earn
it? Absolutely nothing! I never did a stroke of useful work in my life.'
And he said to me, `Suppose the dividends were to stop, what would you
do?' `I don't know what I'd do,' I answered, `I'd be miserable, of
course, because I hate poverty,
I couldn't stand it, it's terrible to think of — not to have
comfort and cleanliness and security. I don't see how the
working-class stand it — that's exactly why I'm a Red, I
know it's wrong for anyone to be poor, and there's no excuse
for it. So I shall help to overthrow the capitalist
system, even if it means I have to take in washing for my
living!"
Peter sat watching her in the crisp freshness of her
snowy chiffons. The words brought a horrible image to
his mind; he suddenly found himself back in the tenement
kitchen, where fat and steaming Mrs. Yankovich was laboring
elbow deep in soap-suds. It was on the tip of Peter's
tongue to say: "If you really had done a day's washing,
Mrs. Godd, you wouldn't talk like that!"
But he remembered that he must play the game, so he
said, "They're terrible fellows, them Federal agents. It
was two of them pounded me over the head last night."
And then he looked faint and pitiful, and Mrs. Godd was
sympathetic again, and moved to more recklessness of
utterance.
"It's because of this hideous war!" she declared.
"We've gone to war to make the world safe for democracy,
and meantime we have to sacrifice every bit of democracy
at home. They tell you that you must hold your peace
while they murder one another, but they may try all they
please, they'll never be able to silence me! I know that the
Allies are just as much to blame as the Germans, I know
that this is a war of profiteers and bankers; they may take
my sons and force them into the army, but they cannot take
my convictions and force them into their army. I am a
pacifist, and I am an internationalist; I want to see the
workers arise and turn out of office these capitalist
governments, and put an end to this hideous slaughter of human
beings. I intend to go on saying that so long as I
live." There sat Mrs. Godd, with her lovely firm white
hands clasped as if in prayer, one large diamond ring on
the left fourth finger shining defiance, and a look of calm,
child-like conviction upon her face, confronting in her
imagination all the federal agents and district attorneys and
capitalist judges and statesmen and generals and drill sergeants
in the civilized world.
She went on to tell how she had attended the trial of
three pacifist clergymen a week or two previously. How
atrocious that Christians in a Christian country should be
sent to prison for trying to repeat the words of Christ!
"I was so indignant," declared Mrs. Godd, "that I wrote a
letter to the judge. My husband said I would be committing
contempt of court by writing to a judge during the
trial, but I answered that my contempt for that court was
beyond anything I could put into writing. Wait — "
And Mrs. Godd rose gravely from her chair and went
over to a desk by the wall, and got a copy of the letter. "I'll
read it to you," she said, and Peter listened to a manifesto
of Olympian Bolshevism —
To His Honor:
As I entered the sanctuary, I gazed upward to the
stained glass dome, upon which were inscribed four words:
Peace. Justice. Truth. Law — and I felt hopeful. Before
me were men who had violated no constitutional right,
who had not the slightest criminal tendency, who, were
opposed to violence of every kind.
The trial proceeded. I looked again at the beautiful stained
glass dome, and whispered to myself those majestic-sounding words:
"Peace. Justice. Truth. Law." I listened to the prosecutors; the Law in
their hands was a hard, sharp, cruel blade, seeking insistently,
relentlessly for a weak spot in the armor of its victims. I listened to
their Truth, and it was Falsehood. Their Peace was a cruel and bloody
War. Their justice was a net to catch the victims at any cost — at the
cost of all things but the glory of the Prosecutor's office.
I grew sick at heart. I can only ask myself the old,
old question: What can we, the people do? How can we
bring Peace, justice, Truth and Law to the world? Must
we go on bended knees and ask our public servants to see
that justice is done to the defenceless, rather than this
eternal prosecuting of the world's noblest souls! You will
find these men guilty, and sentence them to be shut behind
iron bars — which should never be for human beings, no
matter what their crime, unless you want to make beasts
of them. Is that your object, sir? It would seem so; and
so I say that we must overturn the system that is brutalizing,
rather than helping and uplifting mankind.
Yours for Peace..Justice..Truth..Law —
Mary Angelica Godd.
What were you going to do with such a woman? Peter
could understand the bewilderment of His Honor, and of
the district attorney's office, and of the secret service
department of the Traction Trust — as well as of Mrs. Godd's
husband! Peter was bewildered himself; what was the use
of his coming out here to get more information, when
Mrs. Godd had already committed contempt of court in writing, and had
given all the information there was to give to a Federal agent? She had
told this man that she had contributed several thousand dollars to the
Peoples' Council, and that she intended to contribute more. She had put
up bail for a whole bunch of Reds and Pacifists, and she intended to put
up bail for McCormick and his friends, just as soon as the corrupt
capitalist courts had been forced to admit them to bail. "I know
McCormick well, and he's a lovely boy," she said. "I don't believe he
had anything more to do with dynamite bombs than I have."
Now all this time Peter had sat there, entirely under the spell
of Mrs. Godd's opulence. Peter was dwelling among the lotus-eaters, and
forgetting the world's strife and care; he was reclining on a silken
couch, sipping nectar with the shining ones of Mount Olympus. But now
suddenly, Peter was brought back to duty, as one wakes from a dream to
the sound of an alarm-clock. Mrs. Godd was a friend of Mac's, Mrs. Godd
proposed to get Mac out on bail! Mac, the most dangerous Red of them
all! Peter saw that he must get something on this woman at once!
